L'Appel du Vide
by Balambfish
Summary: Destiny doesn't ask. Stand at the edge of the abyss and try to tell yourself you have a choice.
1. A Life with Meaning

**L'Appel du Vide**

by Balambfish

 **Part 1: A Life with Meaning**

* * *

The second she stepped down from the chopper, her boots crunching into hard-packed snow, she felt it stir inside of her. Her calling.

She felt its rightness, like a faint hum in the back of her mind, and its familiar presence seemed to warm her against the frigid Arctic air. It revitalized her, as it always had, like waking up from a long nap. She took a deep breath, the cold biting at her nose and throat, and stretched her arms above her head. After ten listless days steaming from Resolute across Baffin Bay and breaking ice through the Nares Strait, it was wonderful to have solid ground beneath her boots again.

She reached back into the chopper and hauled out her pack, grunting as she slung it over her shoulder. Beneath the oppressive thunder of the rotors, she couldn't hear anything as she hammered against the side of the chopper with a gloved fist, but Grant gave her a thumbs up that she returned with a grin. She trotted away as the engine began to whine and held up a protective hand as the downwash buffeted her with increasing force. The chopper rose and swung away east, and she watched until it was only a red-and-white blip above the featureless white horizon. The _Henry Larsen_ was anchored only ten klicks away, but it could as well have been a thousand.

Settling the weight of the pack across her shoulders, she turned to trudge towards base camp, her calling thrumming happily in her head. The clock in her cabin on the _Larsen_ had read 7:45 PM as she packed the last of her things, but the sun was still high in the west. The sun never set above the 80th parallel, at least not in August. It was a mixed blessing: temperatures would probably only hover around freezing for the entire duration of their fieldwork, but the constant light would do strange things to their sleep cycles. It was funny the first time you accidentally stayed up working for 26 hours, but it didn't take long for your body to crash. Hard.

She turned to face her new, if temporary, Arctic home. One of the cargo skids was already half-pulled apart, and Marie and her team were already struggling with the massive longhouse tent that would be their makeshift lab. Her heart went out to the two long-suffering grad students who were fighting to wrangle the snarl of metal rods and heavy canvas as Marie barked orders at them rapid-fire. She had her own job to do, though; as soon as the chopper dropped her off they were officially on-station.

The sun hardly seemed to have moved by the time the camp was assembled, but her watch claimed it was nearly midnight. They had erected the tents in a rough triangle, with the longhouse tent acting as a windbreak along the eastern edge, and the drill site marked off just north of it. The center of camp was dominated by the squat, green shape of the Bandvagn 206 all-terrain carrier, or as Mark insisted on calling it for some reason, the Short Bus. Its three cars were parked in a little triangle of their own, like a wagon circle in a western movie. Blue smoke trailed from the third car as its built-in diesel generator chugged along, a messy tangle of electrical cables stretching to every tent.

The Bandvagn was the University of Copenhagen's main contribution to the project – besides herself, of course. If everything went according to schedule, in less than four days they'd be packing the whole camp up into it and driving five kilometers northwest to Bravo point. Well, she'd drive; she'd had countless hours behind its wheel during her postgrad work in Greenland two summers ago. She ran her hands over it, feeling the cold of its metal body seep through her gloves.

It was Mark who finally shooed them all to bed just after 1 am. Marie had been making noises about trying to get the drill set up first, but he'd pulled rank as the first aid officer, much to the obvious relief of her grad students. For a while she laid in her narrow cot and listened to the three of them talk in hushed voices, but, between the constant growl of the generator outside and their bewildering Québécois accents, she soon gave up. Instead, she pulled out her laptop, running over her schedule for the hundredth time. Four days at each drill site, plus one day between each for travel and setup, and then two long days of driving back from Echo point to re-board the _Larsen_. Ten days to steam back to Resolute, and then three plane trips back to Copenhagen. Her fingers traced along the screen, running over the dotted red line that marked the transect. If things went on schedule, they should be arriving at Delta point right around her mother's birthday. Maybe she'd be able to sneak some time on the satphone to talk to her…

It should have been exhausting to think about; God knew the whole team had groused about it the whole trip up. But her calling was alive inside her, filling her with giddy, nervous energy. She never talked about it, not anymore, not even to her family. Her mother had been first to name it, back when she was barely old enough to articulate what it was. It wasn't until high school that she realized it was something uniquely hers: her secret weapon, her personal oracle and advisor. She watched with pity as her friends waffled over their futures, wasting their lives debating who to date, what to study, where to work. She left had them behind with no hesitation or regrets, trusting in her calling as she made bold leaps forward, knowing it would never lead her astray. It waxed and waned, certainly, but it was always there when she was at a crossroads, ready to propel her to the next step of her life. Working here on Ellesmere Island was only the latest.

And now it swelled in her, making her want to leap from the bed and do… something. Anything. She read and re-read her itinerary until her laptop finally died, and with a start she realized it was almost 8 AM. She hadn't slept a wink, but she leapt out of bed anyway, noticing absently that she had forgotten to get undressed last night. She hadn't even taken off her coat. But, she couldn't make herself worry about that when there was work to be done.

She pulled off her socks, wriggling her toes in the cold for a minute. Once they'd had a chance to breathe, she slid new socks on and stepped into her boots, stamping the ground a few times to settle into them. Her tent-mates were just starting to stir as she unzipped the door and stepped outside. It wasn't too cold - just under freezing, barely jacket weather - and she took a deep breath, glad to clear the stale air of the tent from her lungs.

Mark pushed a hot mug of coffee into her hands as soon as she stepped through the flap of the lab tent, which she accepted gratefully. "Mornin'!" he said cheerfully. "Hungry? I got sausages, eggs, bagels, OJ… you're the first one up so you get first dibs!" Mark was the only non-scientist on the expedition, but he wore the most hats: medic, cook, safety officer, and ice field guide. He was on-loan from the Coast Guard for what was probably an obscene amount of money, but ArcticNet's budget was paying for him. It was a luxury to have his help with such a small team.

"Some eggs would be nice, thanks," she replied absently. Her mind was already turning to the work of the morning. Three people could setup the drill in about an hour, but she could do the visual inspection herself…

A hand on her shoulder made her jump. Parts were spread out in a semi-circle around where she sat, cross-legged, on the ice, and she stared at them, blinking.

"Breakfast is served," Mark said with a grin. Scrambled eggs steamed on the paper plate he held out to her.

"Oh, uh, thanks," she mumbled after an awkward delay. She reached up and took the plate gingerly, then took a bite, not really tasting it.

"How's everything lookin?" he asked, glancing around at the bits scattered around her. "We took some bumps in the Nares." She snorted. Only a Coast Guard boy could call fifteen-meter swells 'bumps'.

"All good, nothing broken," she said. Even if something had been, they had almost enough spare parts to build a second drill.

"Well, glad to hear it," he smiled at her again. She smiled back silently until he got the hint. "I'd, uh, better get back before the natives get restless…" She kept a smile on her face until he ducked back into the longhouse. Mark was cute, in a swarthy sort of way, but there was work to do. And besides, her calling would have told her if he was worth spending any effort on.

She was just finishing her eggs when the UCalgary team emerged from the tent, blinking at the sudden glare of sun on ice. "Goddammit," said one, fumbling to put sunglasses on. "It shouldn't be this sunny and cold at the same time." Kurt Vogel was the project's principal investigator, a minor celebrity in the tiny ice-core geochemistry community, and a friend. This was their third expedition together. "How are we looking, Lil?"

"Good to go," she replied, standing up and brushing snow off of her legs.

"Good, otherwise these guys are gonna have to cut these samples by hand!" Kurt laughed. She rolled her eyes. Same joke, every time.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Kurt and his post-grads managed to get the drill up with minimal fuss, leaving her to put her own station together. Occasionally, her concentration would break as Mark placed a plate of food next to her, but a minute later she'd be back to wiring the light bed or wrangling her camera.

It was funny how easily she fell back into the field-work groove. When a tired-looking Kurt tapped her on the shoulder, she looked up from her camera to find it was almost 9 PM. "C'mon, Lil. I don't know about you, but I'm bushed." He glanced down at her desk, where a plate of Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes sat cold and untouched. "Get something in your stomach and get some sleep. The _real_ work starts tomorrow."

She stared at him for a moment. "Yeah," she said finally, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. "Yeah, you're right." She shut down the light bed and closed her laptop. Kurt gave her a smile and squeezed her shoulder before walking out of the tent. She tossed the core sample she'd been testing onto the wastewater patch behind the drill site, and grabbed an apple from the mess area before heading back to her own tent.

Warm air rushed past her as she stepped under the flap, and she found Marie and her students huddled around a cheap metal card table, a space heater humming at their feet. They looked up as she entered. "First in, last out, eh?" Marie said in French. "You up for some Cabo? We just started this hand if you want us to deal you in."

She waved them off with all the courtesy she could muster. All the ArcticNet people seemed to do was play cards on the way here; she didn't understand how they weren't sick of it by now. Her cot creaked as she sagged into it, kicking off her boots. Part of her was tired, but her calling was buzzing in her head. She wanted to leap back out of bed and get back to work, but it was pointless until they started drilling in earnest tomorrow. She plugged her headphones into her laptop and turned on a random music playlist to drown out the card game, and then opened the project map. Her fingers traced along the screen, running over the dotted red line that marked the route. If things went on schedule, they should be arriving at Delta point right around her mother's birthday. Maybe she'd be able to sneak some time on the satphone to talk to her…

The music stopped suddenly. She blinked a few painful times, her eyes beginning to water. Her neck and shoulders were tight and knotted, making her groan as she sat up and looked around. Marie and the girls were in bed, and when she took off the headphones she could hear one of them snoring softly. The time on Marie's alarm clock said 5:52 in glowing red numbers. She looked down at her laptop. It read the same.

She must have passed out at some point, but she could still feel a lethargic burning in her arms and legs. There was nothing she wanted more than to curl up on the cot and steal a few more minutes' sleep, but she was already swinging her feet onto the floor. Her calling was already buzzing urgently, filling her with the energy that sleep had failed to. She slipped on her boots, not bothering to change clothes, and stepped outside.

The camp was still and quiet, besides the ever-present rumble of the generator. Even Mark was still asleep, so she strolled into the lap tent and flicked on the hot plate. The coffee pot was just starting to boil when Mark walked in, scrubbing one hand through his hair. He jumped when he noticed her standing in the kitchenette, staring at him.

"Jesus, Lil," he mumbled, rubbing one eye. "You scared the shit outta me."

"Sorry," she said, forcing herself to smile. She held up the coffee tin. "Coffee?"

"Yeah, two sugars, please and thank you." He walked over to her as she began to scoop grounds into the filter. "Hey, uh… you sleeping alright? I mean, pardon me for saying so, but you're lookin' a little rough `round the edges."

She side-eyed him, trying not to be offended at his tone. "I'm fine. I'm just… having trouble getting comfortable on the cot."

"Yeah, they beat sleepin' on the ice, but not by much," he replied with a grin. "Look, why don't you sit down for a spell, I got this." He gave her a wink. "Gotta earn my keep somehow, right?"

She replied with a tight smile and wandered over to the other side of the tent. Leaning back against the light bed, she gripped it hard with both hands and tried to stifle her impatience. When a hot mug was thrust into her hands, she looked up at to see Mark looking at her with concern.

"Double-double, right? I asked, but, uh, I guess you didn't hear me."

"No, sorry… I've got ice on the brain," she apologized.

That seemed to mollify him, or at least he seemed to read her mood and let her be. She stood, staring into space and nursing her mug until people started to file into the tent. She sat with everyone as they chattered through breakfast, but she only half-listened, her mind already jumping ahead to the work of the day. When they finally finished, she leapt from her chair and all but ran to her station, but there was nothing to do but wait. It seemed like hours before Kurt finally ducked into the lab with the first core sample, cradling the two-meter shaft of glassy ice in his arms like a baby. It was all she could do to keep herself from snatching it out of his hands.

After that, time dissolved into the routine of work: each new sample had to be polished, photographed from a dozen different angles, wrapped in polyethylene netting so it wouldn't freeze to another sample, tagged, and packed with enormous care into the giant deep freeze built into the Bandvagn. Once the drill warmed up, the rest of the team was bringing up samples faster than she could process them, so she worked through lunch, and then dinner. Mark made concerned noises, but the timetable said two whole cores needed to be completed by the end of the day, so she did what she had to.

When the last sample was finally packed, she sagged back into her chair, exhausted but satisfied. If they could keep up this pace, she'd have the third core done before lunch tomorrow, and they could begin packing up for the slow hike to Beta point. Her calling pulsed impatiently inside her head at the prospect.

That night found her tossing and turning on her cot. As soon as she closed her eyes, they would pop back open. A few meters away, Marie lay snoring in her own cot, and the sound was like an augur in her temples. She pictured herself sneaking over and smothering Marie with her pillow, but the stupid thing was so thin she'd probably be able to scream right through it in that gutter excuse for French she spoke. Still, she chuckled quietly to herself at the thought.

She considered walking around camp a bit to tire herself out, but that idea was quickly discarded. Outside the darkness of the tent it was as probably as bright as noon, and the light would just wake her up even more. Besides, for all her insomnia, her arms and legs felt like lead from the day's exertion. With a sigh, she leaned over and grabbed her laptop. If she couldn't sleep, she could at least work.

There were hundreds of pictures from the line scanner to sort through, but something made her bring up the project map again. She traced a fingernail over the dotted line that charted their transect below the Agassiz ice sheet. It seemed to writhe and shimmer under her finger, and she circled Delta point idly with her fingertip. If things went on schedule, they should be arriving at Delta point right around her mother's birthday. Maybe she'd be able to sneak some time on the satphone to talk to her…

A sudden, sharp pain jerked her from her reverie: her own fingernails digging into her right palm, clenched so hard that blood already began to well around them. It took a supreme effort to open her fist, and for a second she just stared as red rivulets ran down her wrist, dripping down onto her pants. Then her calling came, as strong as it ever had. It sizzled and snapped, hot and insistent, like her brain was being fried in her skull. The laptop tumbled to the floor as she stood up on shaky legs. She pulled her duffel out from under her cot, heedless of the blood she smeared everywhere.

Clothes and toiletries scattered across the floor as she ransacked her bag until she found what she was looking for, packed away tight at the bottom. Even in August, temperatures could drop as low as -20 C this far north, so everyone had brought survival gear in case one of the treks to the next station turned nasty. She hurriedly stripped off her clothes, her bare flesh goosepimpling instantly. Her teeth chattered as she pulled on her thermal underwear, and then more, layer after layer of clothing, leaving only her head and hands bare.

She was already sweating when she opened the tent, but her calling hadn't steered her wrong. The midnight sun was smothered by dark clouds that streamed across the sky, and the wind howling through the camp drove chaotic flurries of snow before it. She strode into the center of camp, squinting into the wind. Her calling surged as the Bandvagn's blocky silhouette came into view, and her pace picked up in response. She dropped to her knees behind the main car and fumbled with the hitch joint, the cold metal biting into her already-throbbing hand as she hammered on the retaining pin with the heel of her palm.

When it wouldn't give, she pushed herself to her feet, stumbled over to the driver's door and wrenched it open. It only took a few seconds of digging through the survival bag behind the front seats to find what she was looking for: a curve-handled ice tool. She dashed back and jammed its saw-toothed pick head into the pin and yanked with all her might. The pin slid out with almost no resistance, sending her sprawling to the frozen ground. She scrambled to her feet, swearing under breath, and jammed the tool into a loop on her chest harness.

After taking a quick knee to make sure the hitch had disconnected cleanly, she did a quick circuit around the ATC, more out of habit than anything else. She'd gassed it up herself on the _Larsen_ , so that wasn't a problem. Should she bring more fuel? It would only take a few minutes to get the pump mounted on one of the fuel barrels…

"Lil?"

She could grab some supplies from the lab tent, too. Maybe some band-aids or something for her hand - but her calling was already thrashing in her head, driving her to move on…

"Lilith!"

She looked up with a start, and saw Mark advancing towards her, one hand up against the wind. He wore only a plaid flannel shirt and wool trousers, but if he was cold it didn't show. "What the hell are you doing out here? It's two in the morning!" he said loudly over the gale. "Jesus, are you bleeding?"

She looked down and saw for the first time the red smears that streaked her jacket. "Oh… I hadn't even noticed!" she exclaimed with mock surprise. The cold had reduced the blood dripping from her gashes to a slow oozing. "I couldn't sleep, so I decided to check on the Bandvagn, make sure it made the trip over okay." The lies fell easily from her lips, and she made herself smile reassuringly.

Mark's face was hard with skepticism. "When was the last time you slept?" he said bluntly. "You've barely been eating, either."

"I'm fine, really!" she pleaded. "Just… let me finish checking a few things and I'll get back to bed." She turned and began to walk back towards the driver's door, but Mark followed behind her.

"That can wait. C'mon, let's go to the lab and I'll make you some tea. I want to take a look at that hand, too. Don't make me play the medic card, Lil."

She gritted her teeth, fighting to remain civil while her calling roared in her skull. "Look, just… leave me alone! I have to go!" She opened the door and began to climb into the cab, but Mark grabbed the hood of her jacket, pulling her back.

"Lil!" he barked, and she wheeled around, full of a sudden, coursing fury. Her arm swung in a wide arc to knock his hand away, but now the ice tool was in her fist, and it was slicing through the air, half a foot of serrated vanadium steel that crashed into Mark's temple with a force that sent a shock running all the way to her shoulder.

Mark didn't make a sound as his body collapsed, folding in on itself like a puppet with cut strings and yanking the ice tool from her blood-slick hand. She stared down in frozen horror, mouth moving soundlessly as a scream struggled to bubble from her throat. It was her calling that came to her rescue, drowning out her panic with a torrent of pleasure that filled her head like hot honey, thick and cloying. She shuddered, grabbing onto the door as her knees went weak. After a minute the tides of joy receded, leaving her feeling numb except for a distant ache of guilt that she hadn't trusted in her calling. Her calling was good. Her calling was right. It knew what was best.

She climbed into the ATC and turned the key.


	2. The Call of the Void

**L'Appel du Vide**

by Balambfish

 **Part 2: The Call of the Void**

* * *

The whole cab lurched as the Bandvagn hit a bump, bouncing her none-to-gently against the bench seat for the thousandth time. It took an effort, but she made her foot ease up on the gas as she shot a glance at the GPS to make sure the jolt hadn't knocked her off-course. Sometimes she would blink and realize that she had just been staring into space with her foot on the floor, careening through god-knows-what terrain while the diesel engine roared. It was impossible to tell how fast she was going in the storm, and the endless writhing of the snow was hypnotic. The whole world had dissolved into nothingness, snow hurling itself against the windshield in a relentless white-noise pandemonium.

It didn't matter, though. Her fingers drummed a nervous tattoo on the steering wheel as anxious energy surged through her. She'd thought her calling would be satisfied once she driven out of camp, but it still twisted along her nerves, urging her forward. To what, she had no idea, but she was practically bouncing in her seat with anticipation.

A new sound cut through the cabin air, just audible over the whistle of the outside wind and the engine's diesel drone, like a voice whispering in her ear. It took a moment for her to realize it was the shortwave radio built into the dash. After a moment's hesitation, she reached out and turned the knob.

"-ease respond. I repeat, this is the CCGS _Henry Larsen_ to Bravo-Victor One-Zero-Niner, please respond, over."

Her lips compressed into a thin line, and she glared at the radio mic.

"We have received a distress call from Agassiz base camp. Doctor Desjardins, please resp-"

The tinny voice cut off as she reached over a flicked a switch. It had only been a matter of time before the camp discovered… what had happened. Her throat constricted for a moment as a distant ache settled in her chest, but it was a passing thing, soon drowned out by her calling. No, all that mattered now was that nothing be allowed to stop her.

She reached over and tore the GPS unit off of the dash. Her foot let off the gas, and she allowed the speedometer to drop a bit before opening the driver-side door. She pushed it open, fighting the wind that battered against it, and tossed the GPS out to be swallowed by the snow. Could the Coast Guard actually use it to track her? She wasn't sure, but it wasn't worth the risk. Besides, she didn't need it; she could have closed her eyes and pointed straight at her destination. Whatever it was.

The GPS had had the only clock, so even time seemed to dissolve as she pushed forward into the storm. She remembered reading once that long-haul truckers could sometimes get into accidents while driving long, straight prairie roads. Apparently, the brain abhors repetitive stimuli, and staring at the endless identical terrain would eventually cause their eyes to sort of… shut off.

It sounded like the kind of thing that could be true. It would definitely explain why, when a sudden blob of darkness loomed out of the swirling snow in front of her, she didn't even take her foot off of the gas. There was a metallic shriek as the whole carrier lurched, and the breath was driven from her lungs as she was hurled violently against her seatbelt.

For a minute she just sat there, chest heaving with ragged breaths as purple spots danced in front of her eyes. Her foot was still on the gas, but the Bandvagn wasn't moving, and the low growl of the engine was now accompanied by a high-pitched whine. Eventually, she took her foot off the pedal and reached over to unbuckle her seatbelt, trying to ignore the pain that shot up her neck to the base of her skull. She turned around on the bench to dig through the survival bag until she found a heavy-duty flashlight, and then opened the door and stumbled outside.

Her boots sank into the powder up to the top of her calves, throwing her off balance, and she pitched face-first into the snow. The sudden shock of cold snapped her out of her torpor, and she pushed herself to her knees and brushed the snow from her face and hair.

"Oh, shit!" she hissed, before leaning over to dig frantically in the snow. A breath she didn't realize she was holding escaped her lungs when her hand finally closed over the cold, metal body of the flashlight. Gripping it tightly, she struggled to her feet and slogged through the snow to the front of the ATC. She didn't need the flashlight to see the damage; the Bandvagn's tank treads let it rest easily on the snowtop, and all she had to do was kneel down again to see the snarl of torn metal hanging from the undercarriage. Whatever she had hit – some half-buried glacial boulder, probably – had gone through the final drive gear like a table saw. Hydraulic fluid dripped into the snow as she assessed the damage to the drive train, which appeared to be… total.

Fuck. That was that, then. She climbed back into the cab, turned the heater onto full blast, and began rubbing her hands together. There was plenty of gas left to run the heater as long as she would need to warm up, but then… well, she'd have to go on foot. Her eyes darted over to the shortwave and, for a moment, some small part of her whispered that she could still radio for help. There were flares and smoke canisters in the emergency bag…

No. She shook her head, feeling guilty. How many times had her calling led her to seemingly impossible obstacles, or asked her to make difficult choices? She'd left her family, her friends, and her fiancé behind in Nice to go to school in Denmark. She'd… done things she wasn't proud of to get her first postgrad in Greenland. She'd spent the last four years literally writing the book on ice core field stratigraphy, a subject she had come to despise, to get herself to this point. She'd… hurt people. Her fist clenched unconsciously, making the new scabs on her palm throb.

No, there was no going back. If anything, the ruined Bandvagn was only proof that her path lay forward. She let herself soak in the heat for a few minutes, but her newfound inspiration left her unable to sit still. The survival bag's contents were dumped onto the floor, and she filled it back up with only the bare necessities: rations, water, a bag of chemical hand-warmers, an emergency blanket. Once she was satisfied, she slung the straps over her shoulders as a make-shift backpack. She took one last moment to enjoy the hot air blasting from the vents before throwing the door wide and hopping out. Her shadow led the way as she trudged into the blizzard, lit from behind by the headlights until they, too, were lost in the snow.

* * *

When the first shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds, she stared, not understanding what she was seeing. She had no idea how long she'd been sloughing through the snow, her calling dragging her mindlessly forwards. At first, she'd busied herself by thinking about all the dangers of walking across the open ice, beaten into her head by so many mandatory safety courses. Rotten ice, its telltale black sheen hidden under drifts of snow, waiting to dump her into freezing Arctic waters. Hungry polar bears, driven north by the summer ice melt. There were hidden chasms, snow blindness, and of course, the current leading contender: plain, old freezing to death.

She'd managed to jury-rig a hood out of the emergency blanket and a bungee cord, but it did little to protect her face. For a while her lips and ears and nose had stung in the cold, then gone burning hot, and now… nothing. That was probably frostbite, or it would be in the near future. Her hands were jammed in her pockets, trying to soak as much heat as she could from the hand warmers clenched in her palms. Even with them, her finger joints ached terribly. Her feet and boots felt like a single, solid mass, but at least she could sort of feel her toes when she wiggled them.

But, if the storm was breaking up, maybe she would be able to take a little rest. The urge was ever-present in the back of her mind – to lay down, close her eyes, and never open them again. She didn't think her calling would actually let that happen, and frankly, she needed to drink something. Assuming her water hadn't frozen… Shit. Well, if it came to that, she could always use one of her hand-warmers to melt some. She could also eat snow if she had to, but that was a fast track to hypothermia.

The shafts of sunlight continued to multiply, and the wind started to die away, revealing the broken ice field terrain for the first time in who knew how long. A shadowed line off to her left caught her eye – a low, wind-carved berm of snow that offered a modicum of cover from the wind. Her mind drifted to the rations in her bag even as her feet turned towards the berm unconsciously. They'd be cold and hard, but she could warm them up, too. Her pace picked up, and the ground seemed to firm under her feet as she approached the ridge. She swung the bag from her shoulders, ignoring the protests of pain from her arms and back.

When the ground disappeared from beneath her feet, her hand shot to her chest harness in a reflex that Mark surely would have approved of, were it not for the fact that her ice tool was embedded in his skull a world and a lifetime away. The light of day disappeared in an instant, and in the darkness she cried out as her shoulder slammed into the chasm wall, sending her tumbling wildly, shrieking into the air screaming past her face until her head struck something hard and the world exploded into white.

* * *

She was going to die.

As a scientist, she couldn't ignore the evidence. First, there was the heat. When one wakes up in a snow drift, in pitch blackness, after an indeterminate amount of time, one should probably be cold. Very cold. But her thermal underwear had been soaked with sweat. Droplets of perspiration beaded and froze on her eyelashes. The heat had been unbearable, and she'd shed layer after layer in the dark, even though she knew in some clouded part of her mind that this was a textbook syndrome of severe hypothermia.

The good news was that her heart and breathing rates were up, up, up. Unfortunately, that was probably because her endocrine system was dumping every last drop of adrenaline and God-knows what other stress hormones into her bloodstream in a last-ditch desperate attempt to keep her alive. In the short-term, it kept her relatively lucid, moving through the darkness with one hand gliding along the frozen chasm wall. In the long-term, it would wear off and all of the pain she was now only distantly aware of would crash into her. She would probably collapse, hopefully pass out, and then her heart would eventually just… stop beating.

It wasn't hope that drew her forward. Her bag was gone, and with it any chance of surviving more than a handful of hours. No, all that was left was her calling. It strained in her head like a living thing, and only its relentless demand kept her moving, step after leaden step.

The chasm ended so abruptly that she walked right into the wall, and her cry of surprise and pain returned to her from all directions as mocking echoes. Her tentative touches revealed that the wall was stone, not ice. It was rough under her fingers, and from it radiated a deep and ancient cold. For a moment she felt both a pang of despair, and a terrible relief that her pilgrimage was finally at an end, but then her fingers found a ridge in the stone, and she realized what her way forward would be.

The gap was low and narrow, and she felt a wave of irrational anger sweep over her that for all she had sacrificed she would have to come on her knees, a supplicant. But, the feeling left as quickly as it came, no match for her exhaustion and the throbbing pull of her calling. She sank to her knees, eyes squeezed shut, and began to crawl.

For an eternity she crawled, trying desperately not to think of the billion tonnes of stone overhead. At times she had to wriggle on her belly like a worm, clawing at the rock to pull herself forward while fangs of stone tore ragged rents in her thermals. In time, the air in the tunnel grew thick and warm, and numbly she wondered if this was what death felt like. Or, maybe she was already dead, her body pinned between the rock like a bug beneath the very Earth's thumb. Maybe this was just the final nightmare of her dying brain, and she would just spend a seeming eternity crawling in the dark as her last neurons fired fitfully towards the final asymptote of oblivion.

When her hand reached out and found empty air, it took her foggy a moment to register its meaning. When she did, she lurched forward with a wordless sob, dragging herself heedlessly over the tunnel lip to tumble into space. Over and over she pitched down a stony incline before she landed in broken heap. She stared upwards into the dark, pain lancing through her side with every breath as she panted. It took her a moment to realize that she could see. There was no light, but there was a… texture to the darkness. Maybe she was hallucinating, but she could pick out the shape of the cavern she was laying in.

She pushed herself to her knees. Stalagmites dotted the floor around her, their toothy outlines somehow discernable from the greater dark, black against black. She crawled towards one and used it to climb unsteadily to her feet; it certainly felt real enough. A few unsteady steps brought her to the next one, and then another, and so she made her way ever forward while her calling pushed and pulled at her, ever-present. For the first time, it seemed to be all around her, swaddling and buffeting her, as if it was being reflected from the cavern walls in fractured echoes.

She let it carry her forward. There was no sound except for the scuffing of her boots on stone, and her own wheezing breath, but from the corners of her eyes shadows darted. They dashed between the bulbous pillars of stone, always disappearing when she turned to look, only to reappear again at the edge of sight. She ignored them. Every iota of energy and attention she had was dedicated to putting one foot in front of the other.

A light appeared above her. It was no more than a pinprick, a tiny speck of white, but the sudden shock of it made her eyes water. Countless more appeared as she walked, until the whole cavern roof had disappeared into an impossible night sky. One of the stars began to bloom, growing larger and larger until it became a great orb, the moon in full glory. It bathed her in its cold radiance, a harsh, queer light that seemed to fall only on her, leaving the cavern floor in shrouded darkness. It made her feel small, worthless, and her lip curled as a nameless fear rose in her chest. She turned her face from its light, cringing pathetically and clutching her arms to her breast.

When she looked down, the cavern floor was gone. She was walking along a promenade of smooth stone, so white that it seemed to glow. The stalagmites were replaced with tall, fluted columns of grey stone dotted with lamps that shone in every color conceivable. Every space was filled with flowers and trees that filled the air with their heavy perfume. All around her, men and women in strange, beautiful clothing strolled along the avenue or loitered in small groups. As she passed each one, they stopped and turned towards her, their staring faces as featureless and empty as a mannequin's. A thousand voices chittered in the air, whispering eagerness and anticipation.

A castle stood at the end of the wondrous boulevard, like a forest of shimmering spires that reached into the heavens. Light seemed to pour from it like a river, and its massive doors were flung wide in welcome. It was beautiful, unbelievable, and at the sight of it a terrible yearning grew in her heart, a dark and gnawing hunger. Her tongue ran across her cracked and frostbit lips. The chittering increased in volume as she approached it, and her calling rose with it, singing inside her head. Whatever was inside belonged to her, it sang. All of this was hers.

The whispers stopped the instant her foot crossed the threshold, and the light behind her evaporated back into nothing. When her eyes had readjusted to the gloom, she saw it: a spherical lump of stone, no larger than her first. It seemed to hang in the air, but as she stepped towards it she saw it hung from an impossibly fine stalactite, as if over eons the stone had caught it like a fly in a spider's web. Her calling began to sing in her head again, and as it did the stone began to glow the deep purple of an old bruise. She stepped closer, and the glow deepened to a virulent, scabrous red, pulsing in polyrhythm with her calling.

The song in her head became louder as she lifted a trembling hand, raising to an agonizing vibrato that she could feel in every cell of her body. She laid her palm against the stone's surface, and for a fraction of a second she thought she saw something move within that cancerous glow. It was cold beyond cold, and it seemed to pull all of the heat from her body in an instant. She sagged to her knees, cradling the stone against her cheek as her calling changed from a song to a joyous roar, a primal scream of ecstatic triumph louder than sound. The force of it scoured across her soul, a slow, inexorable wall of obliteration.

This was good. This was right.

The last thing she felt was a tear freezing to her cheek.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

Greetings! This story had been percolating for years in the back of my head, until I was inspired by Pycho-logical's _Pre Beginnings_ to actually put pen to paper. As someone who has only written fluffy romance in the past, it was fun to stretch my legs a little with something darker.

I wanted to paint Beryl's modern-day origins as a kind of grim counterpoint to Usagi's awakening as Sailor Moon. As someone once said, fairy-tale endings are pretty bad for about 50% of the people involved!

For what it's worth, shout-outs to the real-life CCGS _Henry Larsen_ , ArcticNet, and all those EOS grad students busting their asses in the cold for science.

Mega-shout-outs to TheDrifter for being my beta on this story, and for putting up with my rantings about it (and in general)

And finally, my thanks to anyone who actually read this all the way through despite this story containing no romance or shipping of any kind! I promise it will never happen again ;)

Peace,

BF


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